Here’s a clip of President Obama talking about the Brexit, its implications for the U.S. and Trump’s absurd and ignorant end-zone dance:
An excerpt of the TPM’s summary:
“Mr. Trump embodies global elites and has taken full advantage of it his entire life,” Obama said in an interview with NPR published Tuesday. “So, he’s hardly a spokesperson—a legitimate spokesperson—for a populist surge of working class people on either side of the Atlantic.”
Arriving in Scotland last week to open his new golf course on the day of the Brexit vote, Trump was quick to applaud himself for predicting the result of the vote and compare it to his own support…
The president told NPR that the parallels between the U.S. and UK were not so clear. He compared the economic recovery and banking reforms undertaken in the United States since the 2008 housing crisis to the decade of austerity-fueled “stagnation” that has choked growth in Europe. Still, Obama allowed, Trump and pro-leave forces in the UK had the same goal: stoking anti-immigrant sentiment to distract from economic woes.
“Overall I think the differences are greater than the similarities. But what is absolutely true is that the ability to tap into a fear that people may have about losing control and to offer some sort of vague nostalgic feelings about how we’ll make Britain great again, we’ll make America great again,” Obama said.
“And the subtext for that is somehow that a bunch of foreigners, funny-looking people are coming in here and changing the basic character of the nation. I think that some of that is out there both in Europe and in the United States.”
I’m glad the president pushed back on the ridiculous notion that an entitled fat cat like Trump is a legitimate spokesman for working class angst. Also, kudos to the president for citing austerity measures as a drag on Europe’s recovery and for pointing out that Republicans in the US wanted to enact them here.
Bonus vid via Wonkette: Murdoch’s morning show agitprop muppets feed talking points to Uday Trump, who snaps the nuggets into his trout-like gob and regurgitates them on live TV:
Jesus, what a weird fucking election year this is. Open thread.
Corner Stone
BENGHAZI!!1!
phoebes from highland park
Damn, I’m really going to miss him!
agrippa
I am not complacent at all about Trump. I think that he can win.
There are many who will vote for him because of who he is – not in spite of who he is.
My guess is that the result will be similar to 2008 and 2012.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
Listen you naked , sweaty, onion and garlic wearing sod, the word you are looking for is ‘Beatlejuice’ that is the only cure for what ails you. Benghazi will only stimulate the emotionally stunted and those who have built up an immunity to facts.
Hope you’ve cooled down.
Emma
@phoebes from highland park: Me too. He thinks before he speaks. I know Hillary does the same thing — I’ve seem her answering enough questions to know — but he’s a natural.
Corner Stone
@agrippa:
If those are the two data points chosen then IMO it will be much closer to 2008. However, I think we’re going to continue to see disastrous missteps by the Trump campaign and R leadership and end up with a significant, probably historic in modern times, EC win.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft:
It’s almost like you’re the only one who gets me.
Corner Stone
Tamron Hall is beating Rep Westmoreland about his head and shoulders with the House final report.
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: Others who do may not be comfortable sharing that fact in public.
DJT
Silly to compare the two elections, totally different electorates.
Anoniminous
Ruling Class and those that aspire to the Ruling Class need a scapegoat as a foil to whip up the mob into the catharsis of what Orwell aptly named “The Two Minute Hate.”
hovercraft
@agrippa:
Rebecca Traister has a piece today to calm us down. From NY Magazine
Poopyman
@Corner Stone: Gezundheit.
How’s the A/C?
Matt McIrvin
The best guess at the state of the race right now comes from Sam Wang’s state poll aggregator. Right now it looks a heck of a lot like a rerun of 2012–except that there are differences in the details. In 2012, Florida was so close it was impossible to call even on Election Night, and this time it seems to be running slightly but definitely blue. And Arizona is tied up. But Pennsylvania is running closer than it was.
Wang’s average over model scenarios gives Clinton 328 (which is different from the count in his most-likely map, because it’s a weighted average over different maps). That’s more like 2012 than 2008. But since the final count in 2012 was a bit of a lucky break for Obama, it could actually be a better situation than 2012.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Corner Stone: Better than ZombieReagan in 84 or Tricky Dick in 72?
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
She is one of the few bright spots on msnbc. The rest of the media will beat this non story like a drum.
Matt McIrvin
…At any rate, I suspect that any fears/dreams that this race will shake up the electoral map somehow are probably unfounded. I think it’s going to end up looking a lot like the past couple of Presidential elections geographically; the question is just where in that range it falls. And the real thing to worry about right now is the Senate; a lot of people assume that a Clinton win means a Senate majority as well, but the current polling doesn’t look great on that score (especially if she poaches a sitting D Senator as a running mate). If people are electing Clinton because they specifically hate Donald Trump, she might not have long coattails.
p.a.
It was only a matter of time (from TPM):
This is what Dr. James Dobson is telling fellow evangelicals. And it is apparently what Trump told him. Dobson even knows the businessman who recently led Trump to Christ. And it all came out at that big evangelical shindig Trump held a week ago in New York City.
Said Dobson:
He did accept a relationship with Christ. I know the person who led him to Christ. That’s fairly recent.
I don’t know when it was, but it has not been long. I believe he really made a commitment, but he’s a baby Christian. We all need to be praying for him, especially if there’s a possibility of him being our next chief executive officer.
Anoniminous
@Matt McIrvin:
As of June 28th, polling results are dicey. The Infotainment Mediums still require their eyeballs and clicks however so we will be bombarded with the standard hysteria.
JustRuss
Huh? Since when have Republicans, or Trump, tried to distract from economic woes? All they talk about is how f’d up our economy is. Sure, they use immigrant-bashing to distract from the real causes.
Xantar
@agrippa:
2008? You mean the election where we got a groundbreaking new president, a strong majority in the House, and a 60-vote majority in the Senate?
Sure, I’ll take that.
Matt McIrvin
@Anoniminous: Anything from a squeaker Trump win to a Hillary landslide is definitely possible at this point. The main thing is not to be distracted by nightmarish or exciting results in single polls. But the median picture of the race as of today looks surprisingly similar to an Obama vs. Whoever election, despite anything you’ll read about game changers.
Corner Stone
Erin Elmore, Esq
Trump Surrogate
One more example that anyone who appends Esq to their name or handle is a complete jackass.
ETA, God she is hideous. I mean she’s strikingly attractive and all but the things coming out of her mouth, and her mannerisms…***shutter***
hovercraft
This,
Damn you 22 amend. Sorry Michelle but many of wish we could have him a little while longer.
OzarkHillbilly
@hovercraft:
No, nononono. It’s because all the signs say we are winning. We liberals instinctively distrust any positive feelings because they are antithetical to our much more natural feelings of bereft desolation that comes from our seemingly supernatural talent for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. In other words, we’re all a bunch of losers. Just ask the Donald.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@p.a.: Dobson is a subhuman child-molester apologist whose abject lack of morals would literally compel him to carry water for such as Trump. The evangelicals will try anything at this point. The GOP only loses an election if they fail this time. The evangelicals lose the Supreme Court forever.
DJT
Love all the crowing by liberals based on June polls. Remember: none other than Michael Dukakis was up 14 points in June!
Everybody needs to chillax. Trump will focus on the rustbelt after the convention. OH, PA, WI, MI, even MN–all up for grabs still. Turnout of “missing white voters” + depressed black turnout (especially among older black women) due to Obama not being on the ballot+earned media=TRUMP victory!
It’s simple, really: drive up white support in the midwest to southern levels and the GOP has an electoral lock.
Corner Stone
@Poopyman: So far so good today, Poopster. At one point yesterday we had three yoog wok trucks outside my driveway so I flagged one of them and chatted him up a bit. I was like, “Four times in 8 days?” and he responded, “More like 9 times.”
So we chatted about causes, mainly CenterPoint failing to invest in infrastructure since this neighborhood was built some 20 or so years ago. And why they were having to now go transformer by transformer and physically inspect them. Because when they replaced/repaired the one that blew the next one down the line went kablooey.
Needless to say I’m not too happy or sanguine about our chances for making through the next couple months without more major issues. I was about 30 minutes from going to a hotel yesterday as that was the longest outage yet this summer.
CaseyL
A bit OT, but it is political news: Corbyn has lost the Labour No-Confidence vote 172-40, motivated by his general lack of leadership ability and specifically by his utter uselessness in the run-up to the brexit vote. Not to mention most of his Shadow Cabinet having resigned.
He refuses to step aside, because only he truly represents the will of the people, or some such thing.
He really is their Bernie Sanders, isn’t he?
We dodged a major bullet over here by not nominating Sanders. Labour is stuck with Corbyn, as there seems to be no mechanism to force him out as Party leader.
OzarkHillbilly
@p.a.: Yeah, just like Dennis Hastert had relations with with his HS student wrestlers.
Three-nineteen
Why do posters on this site keep denigrating Muppets? Muppets are awesome and do not deserve to be linked to anything Trump, Trump-like, or Trump-adjacent.
Chris
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Remember when James Dobson said he “would not vote for McCain as a matter of conscience” and then did it anyway?
Yeah, I think he and his whole faction are waking up to the fact that their influence has declined a lot just in the last ten years. And they’re increasingly resigned to the fact that they’re just yes-men, not kingmakers, in the GOP coalition, whose best hope is just to support whoever’s winning and pray that he’ll throw them a bone when he’s in the White House out of gratitude for their support.
hovercraft
@JustRuss:
Yeah, but in Britain and the rest of the EU many economists over the last year plus have been pointing to conservative governments austerity policies as the reasons for the prolonged slump. When you’re signature policy is being blamed for the populations woes you need to be able to say look over there puppies.
Amir Khalid
@Corner Stone:
I might make an exception to that rule for people with the surname Fender.
Matt McIrvin
@hovercraft: One reason liberals are so nervous is that the downside risk in this election is so much greater than the upside potential, and that’s probably going to continue for the foreseeable future. Democrats are probably not going to win the House this year, and the next couple of elections after that look kind of brutal, so there’s no real prospect of passing any legislation. The Republicans may even be able to hold the Senate under President Clinton, which means they can keep blocking all Supreme Court appointments as Justices die off or retire (even without the filibuster, which they’ll use instead if they have to, unless it’s eliminated). In the area where the President has the most power, foreign policy, Hillary Clinton’s policies may not even be the ones we really want.
So we don’t really stand to gain a lot over the status quo if she wins. On the other hand, losing this would be a horror on a scale that is difficult to imagine. So the universe of possibilities is not one to really comfort anyone, even if a win is probable.
OzarkHillbilly
@Corner Stone: Hmmmmmmm, OzarkHillbilly Esq…. Got kind of a nice ring to it.
LAO
@p.a.:
What fucking turnip truck did these evangelicals fall off of? If I was a “believer,” I would be seriously annoyed that people like Dobson would think I was stupid enough to buy their crap. The level of pure stupidity this election has brought to light is remarkable.
Felonius Monk
@Corner Stone: You mean THIS Erin Elmore, Esq. ?
Calouste
@CaseyL: I think there is a mechanism for a leadership contest, if enough MPs and MEPs vote for it. If it is possible, that will very likely happen. If it isn’t, I’d expect a large number of the Labour MPs threaten to leave the party and form their own.
EDIT: Corbyn says that “Today’s vote by MPs has no constitutional legitimacy.” Well, it only has to abide by the Labour Party rules, not by the constitution. The man is almost as much of a bullshitter as Sanders.
hovercraft
@OzarkHillbilly:
I don’t think she means conservative in the “I’m a true Conservative” way , just that we want to conserve our gains. I cringed when I saw that word, it’s been turned into a bad thing by the evil ones.
Then again we do have a penchant for blowing what should be the lay-ups. So there’s that.
OzarkHillbilly
@DJT: Dude, what are you smoking?
CONGRATULATIONS!
@DJT: Right to Retch is back again. Someone please kickban his ass.
Felonius Monk
@LAO:
Oh, right. He’s accepted a relationship with Christ because he’s trying to get a line on a fellow named Judas so he can con him out of 30 pieces of silver.
Matt McIrvin
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I guess he got bored with playing liberal concern troll or fake-Berniac and went back to his old shtick.
rikyrah
LOL at Uday.
Makes me laugh, every single time.
gwangung
@OzarkHillbilly: Think he’s “Rising” to the occasion.
Origuy
From McSweeney’s: I Was the One Who Bought George Zimmerman’s Gun
Corner Stone
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Given that we’re still three weeks out from the convention, and that Trump continues to open his piehole every single day….hoocoodanode?
ETA, if you believe anything about early polls, if UT is in play..if AZ is in play..if anyone for the love of God can deliver voters in South Texas who should be motivated at a level high enough to power a large town…
MCA1
@Matt McIrvin: I disagree. Maybe aggregate national numbers and tallying up EV’s based on polling averages looks generally like ’08 or ’12 right now, yes. But they underlying dynamics are much different. In neither 2008 nor 2012 did we see a Republican nominee who went into immediate freefall after securing the nomination. Trump’s on a downward trajectory that maybe McCain reached after Peak Palin scared the hell out of everyone, but otherwise is pretty much unprecedented in recent elections. He still has plenty of time to start acting like someone older than 12 who actually knows anything about governance, but it’s not likely to happen, and meanwhile, I don’t remember many lifelong Republicans quitting the party or saying they couldn’t in good conscience endorse (or in some cases, even vote for) Grampa Simpson or Mittens.
And new polling shows that, surprise! as of late June the number of Sanders supporters who say they’d vote for Trump is only 8%. That less than half the number of Clinton supporters who said in June of ’08 they’d vote for McCain. There’s a pretty good chance that a post-Dem coalescence landscape reveals a consistent 8-10 point Clinton advantage going into the conventions. And I don’t see anything that would lead me to believe it’s even reasonable to think Trump gets more of a convention bounce than Hillary.
AliceBlue
@Corner Stone:
As one of Rep Westmoreland’s constituents, I am totally in favor of this.
Matt McIrvin
@MCA1: See, I think general hatred of Hillary cancels out the special awfulness of Trump and leaves the situation electorally surprisingly normal.
scav
@CaseyL: What is it with white male leaders suddenly coming in only two or three flavors with canned excuses (“some elections matter more than others, while others are illegitimate / undemocratic and can be ignored” — I thought I just read that Boris seemed to think the BREXIT vote was meant as a confirmation of his right to assume power and no further election would be needed) and oddly bad haircuts. It’s like those coffee commercials where diners pretend not to notice they’re suddenly served nothing but freeze-dried instant.
catclub
@DJT:
and Mike Dukakis had been a national politician, well known to the nation, for over twenty years, so there was no way his poll numbers could change over the next few months. Or not so much.
OzarkHillbilly
@hovercraft: Oh I know, I got exactly what she was saying and I agree with her. I was just having a little fun at our expense.
catclub
@Amir Khalid: No love for large proportioned ones, last name Statue?
dmsilev
@DJT: Ran out of R words in your dictionary, did you?
Mike in DC
The Trump strategy relies both implicitly and explicitly upon racially polarized voting. The belief is that 1)Trump can increase white voter turnout and win 65-70% of the white vote, and 2)black and nonwhite voter turnout will decrease without Obama on the ballot.
However, Trump is currently a bit behind where Romney was with white voters, and the reports of mass registration of Latino voters suggests that the second assumption is also faulty. It would be mildly reassuring if an openly racist white nationalist candidate got fewer white votes than a traditional dog whistle conservative candidate.
catclub
@LAO: Turnip truck indeed.
There is a phrase that Christians ‘are to be innocent as doves and wise as owls’.
I think Dobson translated that to ‘gullible as ducklings and greedy as Croesus’.
hovercraft
@Matt McIrvin:
I agree the stakes are way to high for complacency, that was a large problem with the Brexit vote, turnout in the Remain areas was down because many there assumed that their side was going to win so they didn’t bother to vote. The chances of winning the senate are still pretty good, most of the republicans who are endangered are running about even with their challengers which is not good for them at this point, seeing as many of the challengers don’t yet have the same name ID. With the senate Hillary can solidify the liberal block on the court, even if the democrats have to blow up the filibuster in the process. The blockade against Garland means they have to ruthless. The last two elections we’ve said that a loss would bring them to their senses, but I no longer believe they have any sense to return to. So the congress will be a struggle, but democrats have to lay the groundwork now for the midterms and then the big prize 2020. A major saving grace for us is that this will be a presidential year, so there is a good chance for democratic control of the redistricting process.
So yes there are still a lot of bad outcomes that are possible, but keeping them in mind should be motivation enough to keep pushing forward. The Koch’s have spent 30 years building this infrastructure to overtake our democracy, we cannot undo it with one election. The supreme court is the most important prize, and for that we need both the senate and the presidency. The gop is without shame so they must simply be ridden over. F**k comity and tradition.
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone:
I wish I would have had wok trucks outside my driveway as that would have been sooo much better. Come here my little pan fried dumpling!
MCA1
@Matt McIrvin: I especially like the tossed in “even MN” part. As if Minnesota was ever part of the f’ing industrial Midwest in the first place. Its economy is kicking ass precisely because Minneapolis has always been more banking, corporate and service industry based than anywhere else in the Midwest save Chicago. To suggest that, because there’s this one weird Congressional district that elected Michelle Bachmann, the state with Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken as its senators, and Keith Ellison as its most prominent House member, is up for grabs, is f’ing ludicious. The number of Sanders primary voters in MN who are disaffected, hard hit white resentment voters as opposed to old school Humphrey/Mondale/Wellstone liberals who will come home to Clinton happily is somewhere approaching zero. And Rubio won the Republican primary there, for crying out loud.
Well played, DougJ.
Corner Stone
@Felonius Monk: That very same one, my jazzy friend.
Chris
@MCA1:
As my current housemate has always been proud to remind me, they’re the only state in the Union that never fell for Reagan’s keg of kool aid.
Mnemosyne
@LAO:
Remember, these are the same people who believed David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz when he claimed from prison that he was now getting messages from Jesus instead of Satan.
In other words, morons.
rikyrah
Presidential Ether
scav
@catclub: Wise as Owls? Owls were also symbols of stupidity, drunkeness and associated with evil so a large latitude of behavior is baked into it. cite ONE and cite TWO
Corner Stone
@Felonius Monk:
No, no, no. He just wants an opportunity to sell him some Trump Robes and Trump Sandals and invest in a new condo that’s being built in Galilee.
It’s going to be the best, believe me, believe me. The yoogest and classiest, like no other, and so beautiful. Just the best, believe me.
hovercraft
@LAO:
It only works with the ‘evangelicals’ who use the moniker as a cultural identifier, the ones who actually attend church weekly rejected him and went for Cruz. Many of them will never vote for the “murderer” Hillary, but they may stay home. So he will get a big chunk of them but he needs all of them. This is also the area where RMoney is actually hurting him with Mormons, who cannot abide his disparaging of different minorities. Their persecution is recent enough that they fond him distasteful, that is why AZ is looking like a toss-up, that and the Latino problem.
catclub
@scav: ok, I got the quote really wrong.
here it is: ” Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
Matthew 10:16
Can I do my Gilda Radner ‘Never mind’?
MCA1
@Chris: Being a native ‘sotan myself, while proud of that, I still hope you remind him of the fact that that’s mostly because the guy they’d named the Metrodome after was the Democratic nominee. Don’t want to go getting too big for our britches, dontchaknow. :^)
Aimai
@CaseyL: yes. Watching what happens when an angry, intransigent, purist decides he is right snd everyone else–even his former allies–are wrong makes me grateful we dodged the bernie bus.
rikyrah
@Felonius Monk:
O-U-C-H
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
I disagree, because I think the only “general hatred” for Hillary is from white men, who will almost certainly vote for Trump no matter what, just like they voted for McCain and Romney.
Show me the minority voter group that hates Hillary and refuses to vote for her, and then I’ll be worried. White men hating Hillary is par for the course.
Chris
@MCA1:
Ah, Midwestern humility. Gotta love it. :D
gogol's wife
@phoebes from highland park:
Me too. He is so damn smart.
hovercraft
@MCA1:
You are right, there were a few high profile defections after Palin/ Curic, Powell, Susan Eisenhower, but nothing like this.
The polls are June polls which are pretty meaningless except with this nominee. The fat that they are out there showing him down itself is causing him to react in ways that will drive his numbers down even further. So here are some more. From RealClearPolitics
Drump is beating he like drum in the Midwest right?
Keith G
For most of the 20th century, America was the dominant society. For much of that time the dominance was continuing to increase. Predictably, that state of the being was morally, scientifically, ecologically, and legally unsustainable. The new rules of this changed global economy has created a much larger class of economic losers (and otherwise economically downtrodden) than we are used to having to deal with in this society.
I hate call them losers, but they are losing power, and status, and choices, and above all they are losing the notion that their story will most likely end up being better than it is right now.
Some of them are racists, and/or misogynists, and/or homophobes. Some of them are none of those. If history is any guide, all of them are capable of latching on to demagoguery. And yet, most will be less likely to do so if their fears are stridently addressed by good-hearted people who aggressively step in to show them a better way.
This of course also applies in many ways to what has happened in the United Kingdom.
Gerald
@phoebes from highland park:
We all will miss THIS POTUS!
scav
@catclub: Yoikes, that is a different translation. Is is sort of one of those egg-corns, only of a phrase? Because the symbolism of snakes and owls has apparently changed so much over time? I only knew of the drunk owls as I had a friend who pointed it out every single time we went by the big owls on the Chicago main library.
J R in WV
@hovercraft:
And I saw in a comment somewhere on here that commenter’s 73-y-o mum’s lunch club members were sure that if they voted “leave” that would cause the immigrants to – leave. ??
Never were do many so confused about such a simple election !!
Hoping that kind of confusion doesn’t interfere with our voting Ms Clinton in and Mr Trump out this fall. Wonder who he will pick as VP running mate!
Is there any legal or constitutional reason a VP couldn’t also be appointed Secretary of some cabinet office? Like Treasury? or Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?
Would a person elected VP have to resign another elected office, constitutionally? Legally?
Asking for a friend…
the Conster, la Citoyenne
The “working class” is largely minority, and they’re not turning to Trump. College educated whites were part of the Obama coalition last time. Trump’s supporters typically earn above the country’s median wage, so it’s not really true that working class whites are his biggest bloc of supporters. He’s going to get all the middle class and working class white haters like the GOPers always get, but who else will flip en masse? I think married white women will be more likely to cleave away from that bloc of reliable GOP voters this time, but we may not see it before they get into the voting booth. And this is before Trump runs off the rails the closer we get to November – he’s careening around now.
Paul in KY
@DJT: Yeah! Cause there are no brothers in those states you mentioned. Dick.
catclub
@scav: “Yoikes, that is a different translation. Is is sort of one of those egg-corns, only of a phrase?”
No, I was just wrong when I said owls.
El Caganer
@Corner Stone: Trump Towers Golgotha!
Calouste
@Aimai: Also note that Corbyn, like Sanders, has an extremely safe seat. Labour have won every single election in his constituency by at least 10% since 1945
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
The person who figures out how to crack the code and convince disgruntled whites that they’ve been conned and their economic problems are actually due to manipulation by the 1 percent will have the keys to the kingdom. Unfortunately, as has been shown in the UK and various other places in Europe (like Hungary), it ain’t just an American problem.
catclub
@Mnemosyne:
Fixed.
TriassicSands
Shorter Barack Obama.
I stand in awe of Mr. Trump’s abilities to accurately predict the past. He is unerringly right about what happened yesterday, except when he is completely wrong, because he’s a know-nothing buffoon.
Mr. Trump was in the UK at the time of the vote, because running for president isn’t remotely as important as the opening of the world’s gazillionth golf course — a truly epic event in the history of Western civilization. History courses in the future will no doubt focus on the importance of the opening of the Trump golf course and how it overshadowed the Brexit vote in both importance and long term significance.
As a fan of the Olympics, I can hardly wait for Mr. Trump’s Olympic predictions which will be due out shortly after the closing ceremony on August 21. I’m sure I’m not alone in breathlessly waiting for Mr. Trump to predict what happened between August 5 and the 21st. Paranormal psychologists, led by the renowned Dr. Peter Venkman, are eager to study Mr. Trump’s amazing abilities.
catclub
Can I just approve of the word ‘scampaign’?
Cain, Newt, Carson!, Huckabee, Bachmann, all went by without that word being coined. How could that happen?
Betty Cracker
@Keith G: I believe you are correct about status decline being inevitable only if we (as a society) choose to continue to apply 20th century rules to the 21st century economy. And we probably will, at least for the foreseeable future. But it doesn’t have to be this way, and I am cautiously optimistic that someday, almost certainly after you and I are long dead, people will redefine work and retool capitalism.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Mnemosyne:
The 1 percent manipulate disgruntled whites by using their racism and the promise to hurt “those people” more. If whites stopped being so racist, learned to share and vote for tax increases for the 1% and more social programs, we could have nice things. I don’t know how to get whites to stop being so racist, unfortunately. That’s the key to the kingdom.
Stan
@Mnemosyne: “The person who figures out how to crack the code and convince disgruntled whites that they’ve been conned….”
Yup. The weird thing is, Trump has them halfway there. He’s got them on the hook with a new con, but still, they know now they’ve been conned.
Robert Sneddon
@Calouste: Nope, there’s nothing the PLP can do until the leader resigns and that sets off a leadership contest. They can be got rid of by a few other methods (like being arrested, or dying on the job as has happened in the last few decades) but the Labour Party leadership is a “closed primary” deal voted on by all Party members, not just the MPs.
The “no confidence” vote is confusing as such a vote on the performance of the Prime Minister means they can’t expect to do the Government’s business by getting majorities in the House and it is taken to be a call for immediate resignation. This is an internal matter for the Labour Party with the right-wing Blairites feeling their oats. To quote Hilary Benn’s father, Tony Benn — “New Labour is the smallest political party in the country. Unfortunately they’re all in the Cabinet.”
Calouste
@Robert Sneddon: Same with Corbyn’s Purity Party. He has 40 supporters in the PLP and at least 12 of them are in the cabinet.
Seems like all the Tories that paid Labour 10 quid so to could vote for Corbyn last year are getting what they paid for, a split in the Labour Party.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I’m a white male, and I’ve repeatedly voted for all those things all my life. The first election I was eligible to vote in was 1988 and I phone banked and voted for Michael Dukakis…in West Michigan. We’re not all racist morons, only a slim, dim majority of us are.
Matt McIrvin
@MCA1: Pundits continue to insist that Wisconsin and Michigan are gettable for Trump, because Rust Belt and Scott Walker or something. I think they’re huffing paint. The only reason these states even seem competitive is that they’re underpolled.
And Minnesota is almost not polled at all. The polls that have happened there have been very close, and one in October even had Trump ahead–but the last poll was all the way back in January, when the story was still all about Trump whupping the Republican field and the race was closer nationally. They mean nothing.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
We only need 10% more of the white male vote, and we’d be unbeatable. Only 10%. About 65% of white males vote GOP, and have for 50 years, and Trump needs 70%.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
Minnesota has voted for the Democrat in the last ten (10) presidential elections. In fact, they haven’t voted for the Republican since 1972, according to 270towin.
They ain’t voting Trump. Na. Gah. Happen.
negative 1
@scav: As opposed to the stunning varieties of Fiorinas and Carsons? The complaint only comes for White Males?
Tribal politics is the denizen of conservatives. Play with black magic at your own peril.
negative 1
@Matt McIrvin: It’s like listening to the commentary of a blowout game in the 4th quarter. The announcers can’t just tell you it’s over because they want you to see the next commercial.
This election is going to be a rout by any standards. It isn’t close and won’t be. They just don’t want you to stop paying attention to their ads.
Emma
I.Can’t. Even. WTF???!!!
Robert Sneddon
@Calouste: Actually it seems Corbyn does have a lot of individual support in the “rank and file” as well as in the unions. He won the leadership election last year with more votes than the other three candidates combined (all of them shiny happy Oxbridge professional political types whereas Corbyn never finished his polytechnic degree). Whether he can survive without the support of the Blairites in the PLP I don’t know as he may be too traditionally Labour for them. Then again I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of them defect to the Conservatives once the new Conservative party leader is chosen.
Mnemosyne
@negative 1:
To be fair, white women are marginally less stupid than white men — only 54 percent of them voted for Romney, unlike 62 percent of white men.
And the number of African-Americans who vote Republican is ridiculously tiny, which is why they glom onto people like Carson.
Paul in KY
@Calouste: He can be a backbencher then.
Paul in KY
@TriassicSands: Well done! LOLing!
Tripod
Brexit was a “hold my beer” or “watch this” moment for certain elements of the Democratic Party.
Yikes! I hope he’s OK.
Mike in DC
Apparently Trump will create jobs by tearing up our trade agreements and getting into a trade war with China. That should work great.
catclub
@Mike in DC: Somebody needs to ask him: “So how much more will iPhones cost after you start a trade war with China?”
boatboy_srq
@p.a.:
Considering the source, is that anything like leading a horse to water? Or perhaps a pig?
boatboy_srq
@LAO: Fascinating how nothing faith-specific in one’s life matters until someone in FundiEvangelical authority personally observes one being Washed in The Blood of The Lamb, isn’t it? One more reason Xtians drive me crazy: nothing is relevant unless THEY say so.
Archon
@negative 1:
I’m starting to believe that. Short of a black swan event in October I don’t see how Trump can win.
J R in WV
Someone posted a remark about “why don’t you lefties go to Venezuela where the socialistas have ruined the country!?”
It is true that Venezuela’s economy has been wrecked by
barelynot quite competent management. Incompetent management of any stripe will wreck an economy.Look at how well ownership of the government by Republicans 2000-2008 worked out for the USA !! Dow Jones index at around 7,500, housing market destroyed, investments destroyed, job markets destroyed, really, everything was a failure, even the military, because of poor top management.
That world-wide debacle wasn’t the fault of leftists, it was the fault of Tories and Republicans and conservatives of every stripe in every country in the world. Austerity doesn’t work well in good times, and it certainly doesn’t work AT ALL in bad times. We learned all about Keynesian economics in the 1930s, and saw demonstrated how that toolset could pull a nation lost in despair and bogged down in dept and a lack of liquidity in monetary markets back to prosperity.
But Republicans hated the salvation of America, because it was done by a Democratic administration. They have been trying to walk a tightrope between destroying America again and keeping their theft from Americans profitable ever since Nixon was in charge, and will never use the Keynesian economics tools to save the nation, no matter how badly their austerity-based policies fail the nation.
Rico
Wasn’t that Qusay, instead of Uday? I get them mixed up.
hitchhiker
That visual kills me every time. Woman in revealing clothing surrounded by fully buttoned-up and neck-tied men … let’s see the opposite, just one time. Please?
Three women of various ages in business suits sitting around with a buff young man wearing something that exposes his legs, his throat, his shoulders, and his arms.
What would be wrong with that picture?
Mike G
Christ, what an asshole.
I don’t know how you can get more gullible and willfully delusional if you find such a conversion sincere. More likely the talibangelicals don’t care whether it is sincere or not because it’s just a club they join for personal advantage, not a change of heart. It’s like joining a lodge, you agree to wear a silly hat and follow the rituals and you’re made.
Mnemosyne
@hitchhiker:
I nominate Daveed Diggs, who would also be able to keep up his end of the conversation. Can I get an amen?
Mike in DC
It’s weird when the US Chamber of Commerce is live blogging a point by point rebuttal/refutation of a speech by the Republican nominee for President.
hitchhiker
@Mike G:
Why not? Especially if he holds the little dog. :)
Mnemosyne
@hitchhiker:
It’s the only gun show I’m interested in!
satby
@Corner Stone: jeez dude, I thought we had a real connection
gorram
@J R in WV: Reminds me of the young evangelicals confused about (legally unrecognized) LGBT marriage ceremonies being held after they “banned” them.
gorram
@Matt McIrvin: Just to put it in perspective, remember they said the same thing more or less in 2012 (and probably 2008, although I don’t recall it). That year they put all their eggs in that basket, shouting about how Mitt “the trees here are the right height” Romney was from Michigan and Paul Ryan was from next door in Wisconsin.
The GOP has this weird fascination with picking up the upper Midwest and northern Rustbelt because it’s been so strangely unattainable to them, at least on a comprehensive level. Sure, there’s the odd GOP governor and more than a few red congressional districts it’ll take a 2008 type landslide to unseat, but their role in the region is nothing like the Great Plains or the Rockies or the South and they can’t figure out why (probably because there’s too many partial reasons that aren’t really related – it’s everything from the Great Migration to the bizarre patch of Upper Midwest borderline socialist farmers).
The GOP always says they think Pennsylvania is within reach, and they almost always send someone high level there right before election day. For all their bluster, they have never carried that state in a presidential election that I’ve been alive during. Maybe this will be the year, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
nutella
@Mnemosyne:
One explanation for not controlling the rich is the belief that one day I, too, will be rich so I’m looking out for my own interests really. But that’s a very American attitude so it doesn’t explain disgruntled Brits and Hungarians.
Conveniently blaming everything on other races/ethnic groups instead of the rich parts of our own group — well that could apply to more countries but, I dunno, is Hungary really blaming ALL economic problems on the Gypsies? That’s their only minority.
So what can it be? How can so many people all over the world be so blind to the obvious?
gorram
@nutella: People all around the world with at least some sort of a recognition as being White though. That’s the thing, globally, being White meant easier access to the upper echelons, even if you found yourself temporarily embarrassed. It’s maybe a more common line of thought in the US, but it’s not alien exactly to White people the world over, thanks to centuries of a worldwide capacity to self enrich at the horrifying cost of others’ life, liberty, and land.